A Navy general (David Strathairn) addresses paratroopers about to make HALO (high altitude – low opening) jump into the city. He attempts to allay the fears of the inexperienced soldiers by telling them that no one has ever experienced anything like this. Just as they fall past Godzilla, it cuts to earlier scenes of the evacuation of the city. The lead scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) says goodbye to his family and another scientist (Ken Watanabe) inspects a monster vault at M.U.T.O., an acronym for the unit tasked with dealing with giant monsters known as mutos.

The trailer was originally teased as a series of corrupt files on the viral marketing website for M.U.T.O.. If you enter Godzilla or any other monsters from the franchise into the M.U.T.O. console, you get the following response: “System cannot confirm or deny the existence of this lifeform.” However, if you enter Gojira (Godzilla in Japanese), you get a very different response: “モンスターの王様 (King of Monsters).”